Timeline
by How Clever of You
Summary: Events that shaped the life of an SRU officer and its consequences. Spike-centric  of course ; spoilers up to No Promises. Slight Spike/OFC, but only for a split second.


**I know Mac was the one who gave him the nickname Spike, but I kinda liked what I did (I hadn't seen that episode yet) so I kept it. I would say I hope you don't hate me but you guys never seem to do when I expect you to. Expect the unexpected? I don't know. I love you all either way.**

**I promise that I will start writing about someone other than Spike. I've got several in the works right now, including two fics where there is an actual plotline as in there are HOSTAGES and it gets intense. Except I've only written like 100 some of the first and like 400 of the second. HOWEVER. I hope they get done soon so I can share them with you guys.**

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><p>1972 (birth)<p>

Michelangelo Scarlatti was born on November 15, 1972 at 5:03 in the morning at St. Simon's Hospital in Toronto. It was snowing outside. His mother was there, of course, and his grandmother. His father was not.

He was wrapped in blue fleece, a tiny baby hat on his head when he was named. "Like the painter," Nonna said, smiling. "Like your great-uncle Michel and his brother Angelo." She kissed her two fingers and placed them on his forehead. "You will do great things, my baby."

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1977 (5 years old)

Kendall Lawson was standing in the kitchen, keeping watch. Michelangelo Scarlatti did not believe in his trustworthiness this for a second – Ma left the cookie jar on the counter earlier that morning, and Kendall Lawson had never met a sweet he didn't like.

The rocket was half done, but it didn't look anything like Tom Hutchinson's. He'd paid close attention, though, just like he had promised his mother (even if he didn't specify which subjects he would be attentive in during school; nobody ever said recess didn't count), so he was sure he was doing at least something right.

He didn't have a model rocket engine, but he improvised. People doubted his intelligence, what with only being five years old (he was six in November, thank you very much), and he was set on showing them just how wrong they were. He couldn't reach Pop's desk to get cardboard, so he decided to skip that step. There was a half-full glass of water next to his bed and a bottle of colored window cleaner in the cupboard in the bathroom.

"For charm," he explained, strolling casually past Kendall, who was halfway through his fifth cookie, and into the backyard. He unscrewed the top of the Coke bottle and dumped it into the birdfeeder. (He knew they liked it because whenever he sat outside with a snack of a PB&J sandwich and a Coke, they always wanted a sip.) He also saved a drop to put in a leaf for his pet worm Carl, who liked to sit in the shade underneath the fern on the back deck. Michelangelo figured it was relaxing for him. He also suspected that Carl and the Coke-loving birds were in a game of hide-and-seek. Carl was winning; the birds always made too much noise, so it never took too long for him to find them.

Once that was done, he sat back down in the grass, the now empty bottle gripped between his feet. He held the glass of water in one hand and the cleaner in the other, ready for action.

"Three!" he shouted, and scared away one of the birds trying to drink the Coca Cola. "Two!" There was a racket inside, and Kendall came running out, shouting about how Pop was home. "One!"

The explosion was huge. Pop was furious.

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1985 (13 years old)

This was the first of many talks.

Sure, he'd had the Peer Pressure Talk and the Sex Talk and the Don't Play With Chemicals Inside the House Talk, but those were, for the most part, one-time things. There was a discussion he had constantly, though, and that was the What Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up Talk.

The WDYWTBWYGU Talk would last throughout the years, even after he had a stable job that he loved. It would stretch out from the time he was seven (the first time he heard it) until the last few breaths of his father's life.

He was thirteen years old the first time his answer was met with objection.

"A policeman?" His father looked horrified. "I thought you wanted to be a chemist!"

He pursed his lips. "Dean Bostik's dad is a police officer. I think it's cool."

"You think it's cool!" He threw his hands in the air and stared at the ceiling. He did this often. Michelangelo Scarlatti could only imagine what he was doing. Some of his more far-fetched fantasies included a mother ship that was feeding him information from outer space; his father did not necessarily seem to be an alien, but hey. Nobody suspected that Clark Kent was Superman, now, did they?

"My son," he said, finally putting his arms down. "Please reconsider becoming a chemist. You're such a bright boy, so good in science! You could do so many great things. What are you going to do as a police officer?"

"I'll help make the city safer." He shrugged. "Get baddies off the street."

"You have to _kill_ people!" He shook his head, as if this was a tragedy. "You will have to take lives. That's what policemen do. They shoot people and then have to deal with the dead bodies. Do you want that?"

Michelangelo knew that none of this was true, not completely. He didn't want to hear any more, though, so he said, "No."

"Good, good. So a chemist it is!" He stood up, clapping his son on the shoulder, and hobbled toward the kitchen, calling out to his wife: "My son is going to be a scientist!"

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1987 (15 years old)

"So you've kissed a lot of girls?" She was strawberry-blonde, petite as can be, and the school's newest craze.

"Yeah," he lied, and smiled. No way was he telling anyone he was fifteen, one of the most popular guys in school, and had never been kissed. He had a reputation to uphold.

She leaned back against the locker, the epitome of teenage sexy. "Care to add another to that list?"

She tasted like lip balm and Tab, and she wasn't aggressive. (Not that he had anything to compare her to.) She was slow and sweet, fit perfectly into his long arms, and sighed quietly against his mouth. It was pretty perfect for a first kiss, even if he did have her spit in his mouth afterwards (which he had to admit was pretty gross).

When she dumped him two months later for another Michelangelo, he started going by Spike.

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1989 (17 years old)

Mrs. Daywin stared at him from over the top of her glasses.

"You're failing science," she said bluntly. He shrugged, splayed out in his chair, knees thrown carelessly to either side. She blinked a few times, then cleared her throat. "Mr. Scarlatti. I know for a fact that you are a very bright boy, especially in this subject. What I don't understand is why you aren't trying your best."

He sighed and sat up, leaning forward like he was letting her in on a secret. "Mrs. Daywin. Being a science geek isn't considered cool. And I've got a reputation to uphold."

"If you don't pass this exam, you'll have another reputation to uphold: the senior who couldn't graduate because he failed out of physics."

This caught his attention. He furrowed his brow. "Wait, what?"

She pursed her lips. "I expect at least a B on that exam, or else I'm bumping you. You're going to have to retake the entire year, Mr. Scarlatti."

He stared at his hands for a moment, gathering himself, then nodded. "Sure thing."

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1992 (20 years old)

The first few weeks at college were more party time than anything. He had taken two years off from school at his father's request to get a job, earn some money, and help pay rent. Finally, he made it to community college, where he dated a lot of girls, drank too much beer, and walked around shirtless more than he'd like to admit.

This is what everyone had been talking about for years. _This_ was college life. He was making good grades, but he was popular. He was studying engineering and science, but people actually _liked _him. It wasn't geeky to be a geek, here, because everyone was.

The first time he met Lewis Young, Spike was wearing a dress. It was, to be fair, made of Saran Wrap, Tootsie Roll wrappers, and gum, but it was, in essence, still a women's garment. Lew was dressed more casually, wearing a tee shirt and jeans. Not even the Burt's Bees container that sat next to his hand made him look the slightest bit feminine.

"Hi," he said, surprised by the less-than-girly figure in front of him.

"Hey," Spike replied, and tried to sit down. The dress squeaked and groaned and tightened against his thighs, so he decided that standing was probably the better option. "You're good at history, right? Well, I'm crap, and I was wondering if you could help."

And so their friendship began.

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1993 (21 years old)

He was out on the lake, fishing with some of the other guys from his dorm, when Dominic Esteban came up with the idea.

"We should transfer to the Police Academy," he said.

This was the beginning of the longest, best, and most painful career of Spike's life.

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1999 (27 years old)

Mac was a great guy, and Leslie was a great girl. She helped him color coordinate his clothes and listened to him talk about girls and showed him how to fix his hair (without the gel), because that's what faux little sisters did. He liked being a police officer. He liked the hat he got to wear and the gun he got to carry. And if the blue made his eyes pop? Well, that was just an added bonus.

Leslie got into drugs sometime during their time together, and he really had no idea what to do. He'd smoked, once, at a frat party back in college, but he hadn't touched anything since then. She was heading down the wrong road, a train without breaks, unstoppable by anyone but herself.

Lewis hung around for a while, between jobs, but he eventually moved to Ontario to live with his cousin. They kept in touch for a few months, but somewhere along the line lost track of each other. Dominic Esteban was in another sector, stuck behind a desk, resenting the beer gut and bald patch he had been given. Spike didn't see him very much after graduation.

He only got shot once. He had let his guard down, didn't see the gunman come into the restaurant, too preoccupied with flirting to notice. He was hit once in the leg and twice in the arm, and his gun was stolen. He was useless, unable to move, a broken nose bleeding profusely, earned from trying to get out the hostages. It was gross, and it did not score him any points – not even sympathy – in the pretty brunette's book.

The Toronto SRU, thankfully, came to his rescue. Among them was Patrick David, one of the guys he had trained with. While recovering in the hospital, Spike called him up, just to chat. It turned into an inquiry, a job pitch, an explanation. By the end of the phone call, Spike wanted to know everything there was about the Strategic Response Unit.

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2006 (34 years old)

After his application had been approved, he had to be accepted onto a team. This was incredibly difficult, since there were always bigger, more experienced guys out there who could easily break his back with just their thumbs. He wasn't as slow at running as he had been in high school (he didn't make track four years in a row, despite his best efforts), but he still wasn't the fastest.

The third time he tried out, he was surprised to see that Lewis Young, his friend from college, had come back to Toronto, and was battling him for a spot on the coveted Team One. They caught up in between training sessions and tests, over beers after a long day monotonous jogging. Not much had changed since they had seen each other last, so it was almost too easy to fall right back where they had left off.

Lew joined Team One first. He raved about it to Spike over the phone, telling him about the Sarge, Greg, who acted more like a friend than a boss; Ed, the team leader, who scared the crap out of everyone but was also the cornerstone of the whole unit; Jules, the only female, who was pretty as an actress and tough as nails; Wordy, the softest of them all, who had a newborn daughter who he talked nonstop about; Rolie, a huge guy with a tiny brain but a fast shot; and Donovan, a silent techie who always had a little bit of an evil glint in his eye.

When Donovan was finally arrested for drug possession and first degree murder, Spike got to wear his first pair of cool pants. It was cool to work with his best friend and even cooler to be with people that had his back before they even knew his mother's name.

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2009 (37 years old)

His mother had not held him like this since he had been seven years old and his dog Anthony was hit by a car. He'd seen it happen, too, watched driver jump out, arms windmilling, while the Dalmatian lay gasping on the ground. He didn't know exactly what to do, so he just watched, crumpled to the ground, tears making everything seem like it was underwater.

It was a simple pact, something never to be broken: your best friend was not to leave you. Not in good times, not in bad times, and certainly not in between.

But life wasn't simple like that. Things happened. They both knew the job was dangerous; that was common knowledge. But the fine print of the application hadn't said anything about the possibility of land mines and the handbook didn't give advice on dealing with grief.

His mom held him tight, let him cry into her shoulder as he curled up on the kitchen floor. There was nothing that could numb the pain – he knew Ed would be by later to check on him, to make sure no alcohol had passed his lips, because that was the number one thing about being an SRU officer. You needed to feel what you were feeling. Always. No exceptions.

This applied to taking your first lethal shot, though, at least to Ed. Ed had never lost somebody so near and dear to him that he hated the world, hated every moment that passed without them there. Sure, there were the Tomasics, but that was guilt. Jackson died in his arms, but he was just a stranger. He still had Wordy, his best friend in the world, just a phone call or five minute drive away.

He managed to compose himself for dinner. He was in the bathroom washing his face when his mother broke the news to his father. He turned the tap on full-blast to drown out the silence in the living room. He had never liked Lew, anyway, the heartless bastard. He was probably happy that such a bad influence was out of his son's life for good.

Lew had pulled some strings, had been a big part of getting him a spot on Team One, and he had never forgotten that. Neither had his father.

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2009 (37 years old)

He survived.


End file.
